Interesting

Second bird located in basement… this one is not a mere chick with adult wings, but a full-fledged adult. I’m not certain whether this is the mother of the bird we recently dealt with or not, but apparently she/he/it was too large to fit into the chimney opening in our front room and stayed in the basement. My children and I endeavored to chase her out after hanging a sheet over the kitchen door to keep it away from the rest of the house. It perched atop the open door… then beat itself senseless against the closed windows at the end of the room, perched briefly atop our refrigerator and promptly fell behind it never to be heard from again.

My husband found that he/she/it was not still behind the refrigerator when he checked, so apparently AFTER I herded the children into the other rooms in disgust with our bird saving abilities and BEFORE I remembered the door was still open and closed it he/she/it escaped.

At least one survived.

Our Aunt Joyce drove up from New Mexico, Matt took the week off. We did everything the kids wanted to do with Aunt Joyce (show her their prized Indiana Jones cereal box spoon and eat at McDonalds) and then some. In just a few short days we visited the Children’s Museum, the Zoo, the Park, made coffee cakes, hit the Blue Bottle to piece a puzzle together, played Take-off, some good games of Catan (I won twice as opposed to once like the other players… my appreciation for that game grows ever greater!) played every children’s game we owned, read a million stories, kept the kids up through their naps and occasionally past their bedtimes with no lasting negative effects and spent excessive amounts of time in a van with a sobbing infant. All but the last part was pretty fun.

During the outrageous storms we were not injured and none of our property was damaged. We laughed a little and lost alot of sleep, however, as we tried to watch a movie together. First we discovered the stupity involved in reading any books to children that discuss fears that your children don’t have. My children are not now nor have ever been afraid of the dark or thunderstorms. After we read RC Sprouls “The Lightlings” they tried the whole “I’m afraid of the dark” thing to which I replied… “No, you’re not” and left the room. They found a little Critter book about thunderstorms…. so that night Lithany decided that she was afraid of thunderstorms. I decided she wasn’t going to be. It took awhile, but she eventually saw things my way. Then The ceiling in the room where Aunt Joyce was sleeping began to drip. A lot. Not wanting to leave her trying to sleep in a dripping room, Matt and I tried to drag an unwieldy inner-spring futon mattress up the stairs to our daughter’s room, and relocated her to our room.

That night, Asa cried A LOT. Our pipes gurgled VERY LOUDLY and INCESSANTLY in the upstairs bathroom from at least 4 am on due to the water table issues in Winslow.

Aunt Joyce decided we should have saved our efforts and left her downstairs with that quiet and soothing drip noise. =)

It was a great time. We were sorry to see her go. Soon we will have new guests. They arrive on Sunday. Two adults, three more kids. We will be housing four adults, and six children under the age of seven for about a week. Adults will need patience. Kids will need sense of proportion and a lot of give and take. Nevertheless, it will be good to see them before they disappear into the sunset for several years to California. Matt’s already planning golf, tennis and bowling with his ‘little’ brother.